


Shhhh!

by spikesgirl58



Series: Working Stiffs [50]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 17:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikesgirl58/pseuds/spikesgirl58
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not that many people even know I exist.  The guys in Research and Development do, of course, as they are my most attentive audience.  After I process everything, then they get to play.  When they are done, providing they haven’t melted it down or blown it up or otherwise destroyed the property, I get it back to store until next time.  I have probably the best arsenal of weapons in the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shhhh!

When I graduated from high school, I was voted: Most Likely to Die a Virgin. Well, that wasn’t the real name of the award, it was Class Clown, but word gets around.  Once I heard a friend call me Bowser material and I couldn’t help but wonder what my enemies called me. 

Sorry, I should explain.  When I was about five or six, my mom explained to me that I was different.  Well, you couldn’t come right out and tell a child of that age that, in a family of beauty queens, she wasn’t.  I was special, I was gifted, I was… ugly.  My sisters had gorgeous chocolate brown hair with exotic hazel eyes; I had mousey blonde hair with almost colorless blue eyes.  They had radiant smiles; I had buck teeth.  They had peaches and cream complexions; mine looked as if was waging World War III.   Yes, my life is just Thrillsville, thanks for asking.

I was the girl who got stuck in the corner, forgotten and ignored, no good except to hold onto everyone else’s coats and purses while they went to dance.  I was the one who sat alone in the lunchroom.  I was the one who made people study lest they have to converse with me during study hall.

At least, I was until I decided I was tired of it and took a stand.  Sure I wasn’t ever going to be pretty, but that didn’t mean I was a bad person.  You can only be taken advantage of if you let people do it and I decided then and there to put an end to it.  I wasn’t all that smart, but I was funny and I knew how to make people laugh.

Slowly people stopped seeing me as ‘that ugly girl’ and started seeing me as someone who could make them laugh and feel better about life in general.  Once they got to know me, I had more friends than all my sisters combined.   I still ended up sitting in the corner with everyone’s coats and purses at the prom, but I was never alone for long.

It was Geeksville, but I lived through it.  My sisters, one by one, walked down the gym to receive their diplomas, and then they walked down the aisle.  I watched happy girls turn into despondent old women before their time as their husbands went to work, played golf, did things that other guys only talk about and my sisters stayed at home, getting fat, getting pregnant, and getting desperate. 

I went off to college and got a degree in communications.  I had more friends, men and women, and a social life that spread from here to eternity.   Women liked me because I wasn’t competition; guys liked me because they didn’t have to pretend around me.  My life was my own and I liked it that way.

Now, tell me again who the lucky one was.

And somewhere along the way, I started collecting things.  At first, it was swizzle sticks.  I catalogued them and put them in a frame with a little label so I’d remember where each one came from.  Then my mom mentioned she was having trouble with her salt and pepper shaker collection, so I took on straightening out that mess, hunting down their place of origin, who gave them to her...  It was a challenge and I loved it.  Then I added buttons… and thimbles.  Before long, I had a second title to add to stand-up comedian; I was a collector.

Then this little old man came into my life.  Told me I was different, that I was special and he had the perfect job for me.  I laughed, told him a dirty joke, and then I shut up and listened.  He was right.

Now I spend my days behind steel mesh, looking out at a steel and concrete world.  Everyone wants me, needs me, and comes to me, night and day, wanting me to keep their collectibles safe… heh, I sound like a maximum security priest… Maybe I am in a way.  I maintain the lock-up for all the items our agents confiscate during the course of their work.  UNCLE gets involved in some pretty bizarre situations and anything they bring home, some fancy-schmancy gizmo or doodah, I get.  Micro fiche, tapes… some pretty interesting tapes too, they all find their way to me.  I process them, label and mark everything so that if something needs to be found, it can be.  A room full of floor-to-ceiling storage drawers might not sound like much, but it is my world and I adore my job.

Not that many people even know I exist.  The guys in Research and Development do, of course, as they are my most attentive audience.  After I process everything, then they get to play.  When they are done, providing they haven’t melted it down or blown it up or otherwise destroyed the property, I get it back to store until next time.  I have probably the best arsenal of weapons in the city. 

There are a lucky few outside R&D who know about me. One of them is the Chief Enforcement Agent, Napoleon Solo.  Mr. Solo is a frequent visitor, not because he seeks out my company, but because he’s one of the few people who has clearance to not just know where I am, but also to come inside.  Even his partner, like the R&D boys, has to stop on the other side of a security mesh and wait for me to help him.  Mr. Solo, on the other hand, has the clearance to enter anytime he wants.    Talk about trust, but he is next in line for Mr. Waverly’s job, so I guess it’s not that ill advised.

 

You never know when a day is going to turn out special, or at least I don’t.  This had started out as a typical Tuesday.  What is it about Tuesdays that are so rotten?  Because of the nature of this job, there are only a few of us.  Dannie and Janice run the night shift while Sammy and I do the days.  We rotate weekends and holidays.  It works out as long as no one gets sick.   This particular Tuesday, Sammy had called in with a cold and I was on my own.  Of course, this was following a major assault on a THRUSH fortress that had brought in a truck load of goodies.  They all had to be catalogued, marked, photographed and whatnot before they could be released to our scientists and techs for study.  That means everyone wants this or that piece done first.   It’s hard to push everyone aside and concentrate on only the work, seeing only the piece in front of you.  I mess up, however, and there could be hell to pay down the line.  I am slow and methodical when working through the process and that makes everyone crazy.

Well, almost everyone.

I was photographing one of THRUSH’s newest adaptations to its rifle when I heard a soft bell.  That meant someone had unlocked my gate and was coming in.  It could only be one of a handful of people and I wondered if I was going to get lucky.

I was, it was the big guy himself – no, not Waverly, Mr. Solo.  Like 75% of the women at HQ (and the 13% of the guys who would admit to it), I thought Napoleon was a bit of the all right.  And he liked me because he knew I wouldn’t be trying to come on to him or to get him to proposition me.  We were pals, buds, nothing else.

“Nancy, how are you today?”  He was carrying a foam cup with some coffee in it and he offered it to me. 

“Swamped.  Why do you guys always have to take down a place when I’m shorthanded?”

“Didn’t you get my memo?”  Mr. Solo gets this horrified look on his face, his eyes all big and round.  “I sent it by special courier pigeon and everything!”

“Oh, I thought that was lunch… my mistake.”  My appetite is almost as legendary as that of his partners.  Speaking of which.  “Where’s that pain in your side gotten off to?  I haven’t seen him in awhile.”

“Mr. Waverly sent him off on assignment.  Who knows where he’s gallivanting now?”

Well, **he** did, but I wasn’t going to press it...  “I thought you two were joined at the hip.”

“New surgical procedure.   Wanna see my scar?”  Napoleon started to lift his jacket and waggled his eyebrows on a mock leer. 

“I’ve heard about your scars, fella…”  I started to laugh and suddenly it was like the room exploded into darkness.  That sounds weird, but that’s what it was like - complete and absolute darkness.  I froze at the worktable and tried to remember where Mr. Solo had put down the coffee cup or if he even had. 

“Open Channel D.”  I heard his voice just to the right of me.  “What’s going on?  Communications?  Sarah?  Is there a blanketing field down here, Nance?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”  I groped towards my desk and ran into something hard and warm.  “Oops, sorry, Big Guy.”

“Not complaining.”   I could hear the smile in his voice and wondered just how much self-assurance he had.  I was scared and I knew there was no force in Heaven or Hell that could get through that gate.  I have a mini apartment in back stocked and ready for any sort of situation including an all out nuclear war.  Hell, now I even had a good looking man with me.  I was pretty much set for life and I was still nervous.  And I’m rambling… sorry.

I found my desk and the phone, but the phone was dead.  It took me a minute, but I found my way to the backup system.  Nothing could take that off line.  Sure enough, the familiar tone from Ma Bell greeted me.  It took an effort to dial the number in the dark, but I did.

The phone rang twice and I heard it come off the hook on the other end.  Then I heard the noise, the explosions, and then God-awful screams.

“Steph?  Steph?”  I screamed and I heard someone’s voice, familiar, but at the same time not. 

“Help… help…”

“Steph?”  I was frantic now and then felt the receiver gently taken from my hand.  Then arms wrapped around me, holding me closely as I struggled to put the pieces together.  He smelled good, a combination of aftershave and his own musk and I tried not to tremble, to be brave, but it was no good.  “What’s happened?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s safe to say we’re on our own.”  There was a sudden flash of lights and the dim emergency lighting finally cut in.   “Well at least the back-up systems are still running.  Do you have any contact with the outside world besides the phone?”  He released me and took a step back to brush a tear from my cheek.

“No, radios won’t work down here.”

“You could have told me that earlier.”

“You didn’t ask earlier.”

There was a weird noise from down the corridor sort of a moaning of metal, like a steel beam being twisted.  We both turned toward the gate.

“What the hell…?”  Napoleon took a step away and then there was a _whump_.  “Nancy, is the gate locked down?”

“It should have automatically locked behind you, but… I’ll check.”  It was the hardest thing to do to juat walk to the gate, to get any closer to whatever was making that noise.  It was nearer now, a snarl of rending, a grating of metal on metal.  I quickly checked the gate and even threw the emergency locks into place, thick steel bars that ran the length of the gate and buried themselves twelve inches into the floor and ceiling.  Nothing human could get through that barrier.

I scurried back to Napoleon.  He’d drawn his weapon by now, a paltry Walther P-38. 

“Get behind me. I’m armed,” he told me.

“Hang on a minute.” I went back to one of my cabinets and hurriedly punched in a security code.   The rocket launcher was heavy, but that gave me a strange sense of security. I hauled it out, checked it and carried it back to him.  His mouth dropped when he saw it.  I passed it over. “ **Now** you’re armed.”

Impulsively he reached out and kissed me.  Would you believe my first kiss ever from a guy other than my father or one of my freaky brothers-in-law.  Now I knew what Jimmy Rogers meant about “Kisses Sweeter than Wine.”  Just my luck to get one on the eve of my own death, because I pretty much figured that’s where this was headed.

I didn’t know if the noise was from the building above us collapsing or if we were being invaded by Martians.  It was just scary though, no matter which way it was going down.

“God, what if the Russians nuked us?” I asked and Napoleon looked at me, a strange expression in his eyes, so sad.  Then I realized.  His partner, to whom he was closer than God according to some folk, was out there.  His Russian partner…. Even if he did survive a nuclear blast, he could never come back here.  “I’m sorry, Napoleon.”  I took a chance at using his given name.

“I could use one of your jokes about now, Nance.”  His attention returned to the gate.  “Been meaning to ask you, when did you start your career as a comedian?”

“Ah, when you look like me, you learn to either laugh or be lonely.  I’d rather laugh.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Mr. Solo.  Plain Jane looks good compared to me.”

“There are other things besides just looks.”

“Oh, please, never once in the movies does the woman take off her glasses and the man say, ‘“Why, Miss Jones, your brains are beautiful.”’  When it comes to guys, you mostly stop at the front door.”

He started to laugh, his eyes never moving from the corridor and then he stiffened, lifting the weapon to his shoulder.  “Stay behind me.”

That’s when I saw the movement in the hallway.  It was big and it was metal and it was lumbering.  A…robot?  Ye gods, shades of “Forbidden Planet.”  I was going to meet my fate at the hands of a Robby the Robot clone.   I let out a squeak and huddled down even closer to the floor as it stops just in front of the gate.  “Shit, we’re being invaded by mechanical men…”

“Open it.”  The voice was mechanical, harsh and without emotion.

“Not likely,” Napoleon muttered as he flicked off the safety on the rocket launcher.

“Open it or face the consequences.” It ordered and two hand-like things came out and rested against the gate.

“My thoughts exactly,” Napoleon murmured. He’d gotten an aim on the thing, but if he fired, he’d take out the gate and that would expose us to anyone or anything that might also be lurking.  This thing comes in and we face the same fate.  Oh, lose/lose, just how I like my conflicts.

Napoleon knew this too and just waited.  There was a series of groans and suddenly my gate was buckling… still Napoleon didn’t fire. 

“Nancy, can you electrify that gate?”

“I’ve got a thirty second charge for it, but that will drain my emergency batteries.”

“I think a little juice might slow it down or at least get our point across.”

  Heh, that would be shocking, wouldn’t it?”  I crawled on my belly to the panel and punched a couple of buttons.  There was a massive shower of sparks and an explosion.  By the time the smoke cleared, the mechanical thingie was out of service, but so was my gate.  The two of them were sprawled out on the floor like some kind of metal lovers, both twisted and trapped around each other.  Robby was down for the count.

“Eww,” I murmured.  “If you’re going to do it like that, at least wear protection.”

Napoleon shot me a look and shook his head.  There were still people moving and he swapped the launcher for his pistol.  “I’m armed.”

“How nice for you.  Surrender or die.”  The voice was still mechanical, still without any sort of emotion or inflection.  I thought it had been coming from the robot, but a… man was doing it?  That was weird.

Napoleon didn’t argue; he unloaded five rounds into the closest figures and then took aim at the speaker, firing three bullets dead center to its torso.  The figure dropped and suddenly the lights came back up and there was a flurry of movement.  A dozen men, all hooded, but wearing the usual white shirts, dark pants and shoulder holsters, were all over the place.

“Cut the power!” someone shouted and I watched an R&D boy cut off the juice to the gate.  “You weren’t supposed to shoot him, Napoleon!”

That’s when I recognized his partner’s voice.  Mr. Kuryakin pulled off his hood and squatted beside the downed figure.  “Mark, are you okay?”  He took off the man’s hood to reveal Mark Slate, another of the Section Two boys.  Kuryakin tugged up Mark’s shirt to reveal a bulletproof vest and then lifted the man into a sitting position. 

“Christ, Illya, I thought you said you put blanks in his gun!”  The other guys who’d been shot were up and moving around too, not bloody at all, just a little grumpy.

“I did, you whinger.”

“What are you doing?”  Napoleon was doing a slow boil, his face was red and he was not happy.  A whole boatload of jokes wasn’t going to fix this.

“War games,” Kuryakin said, helping Slate to his feet.   “Mr. Waverly told me to hit that gate with everything I had short of using an actual thermal nuclear device.  He wanted to be sure it wasn’t going to give.”  He glanced over at me and shook his head.  “Good thinking on that rocket launcher though.  You should have used it.”

“It would have blown the gate,” I replied, crossing my arms and trying to look superior to this little smart ass.

“It would have stopped the invader.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to keep the disgust out of my voice.  “But opened it up to the rest of you.” 

“Either way, you lost.”  Kuryakin glanced over at one of his men.  “We need to rethink this.”  His communicator chirped just then and he held it out to Napoleon.  “Mr. Waverly will want a word with you.”  Gesturing to the men around him, he finished with.  “Let’s go get cleaned up.” He wrapped an arm around Slate’s waist and helped him limp from the room. 

Napoleon looked down at the still-chirping communicator and then over at me.  I shrugged my shoulders and smiled.  “This sort of reminds me of a joke I heard…”

 

Just a follow up for anyone interested.  A couple days later, a bunch of flowers showed up at my desk.  They were from Napoleon.  That afternoon, he called me and the next thing I knew I was a whirlwind of activity trying to get ready for a date with the great Napoleon Solo.

He wined me and dined me, then he even danced the night away with me.  It wasn’t until we were walking home, arm in arm, that he pulled something from his pocket.  It was a small snapshot and I paused beneath a street light to study it.  This poor kid, he had a serious case of being hit with an ugly stick.  Goofy ears and bug eyes.

“Oh, this poor kid, what a loser!”  I laughed and started to hand it back to him, then I noticed something.  A small mole just on the kid’s jaw line… just like Napoleon…  “Oh, my god, this is you?”

“At fifteen.”  Napoleon took the photo from me and studied it.  “Just before I realized that you have a choice in life; either you stand back and watch the world as it passes you by or you get out in it and do the best you can.”

I laughed, “A little like me then.”

“Yes.”  He tucked it away in his pocket.  I think he knew instinctively that as ugly ducklings we had to stick together.  And later that night, we stuck together quite nicely.  It was wonderful and I knew it was his way of saying thank you and to give me a bit more courage.  I’d never be pretty, but I’d always be me.  Life has a funny way of working out, doesn’t it?


End file.
